Flow State (Week Three)

“The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow--the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it…for the sheer sake of doing it… The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills at their utmost.” 

-Mihaly Csikzentmihayi

    For this week's reading, we are learning about creative flow and how one knows they are in it. Those characteristics range from complete concentration on the task at hand to a transformed sense of time whether it is speeding up or slowing down or maybe even standing still. As someone who was a musician for the majority of their life, this is an experience I know quite well. I used to play the flute and the piano. And on the rare occasion when nobody is around I sing as well.  It is an amazing feeling to be in a flow state, especially when it is through a creative outlet. I always feel like I am the thing that I am creating, that I am almost blooming like a flower for all to look at(or listen to). It is not a feeling I experience much anymore as I sort of stopped having these experiences in high school when band no longer felt like a safe space or was just adding to the stress of life. Once I went off to college I completely gave it all off, donated one of my flutes to my high school band gave away the other one, and left my piano behind with my parents. 

    For this class, I was out sick, so I am doing this after the fact which complicated things as I am not much of a poem sort of person and that was what the assignment was meant to be. It probably would have been much easier to do this if I was in class, but as this is the way it is, I (hopefully) found an alternative. I know we were supposed to focus on a happy emotion/moment. But lately, I have been a little sparse of those so I just went for any strong emotional moment to be completely honest. I was listening to music and singing along to it when my favorite song, but also a very emotional song for me came on. The song is about a romantic relationship but I always interpreted it in my own way to be about my family and the decision to leave them. Interestingly the song is titled as the same month of when I officially moved out. And as some who are reading this know..I am trying to go no contact and well it has been complicated in every way, and it is destroying me physically and mentally. (see the fact that I am sick again as I am working on this.)

     Due to my connections and love for this song. I decided instead of writing a poem as I was supposed to do I would rewrite most of the lyrics of the song to fit my circumstances, and maybe help me with dealing with all of these massive and almost explosive feelings that I have running rapidly through my head. I was a little worried it would just make things even worse, but it actually calmed all of those thoughts down. Similar to when you have a pot of boiling water and you turn down the temperature. The song was July by Noah Cyrus. My version is written below, and I may possibly link my singing it, I don't know we will see. If I do link it, that means I really took the no-perfectionism thing to heart! I hope it is okay that I did the assignment differently, this just made the most sense to me, and working on it I felt sort of like I was going into a flow state of mind which was sort of the whole point of this assignment, so I feel good about my decision. I did keep some parts as those are the parts that made me feel so connected to her song in the first place, it just felt right. It is basically what I want to say to my mom before I truly cut them off but I don't know if I ever will.                                                                                                                 My video

I've been holding back my words

I've been counting to ten

over everything you've said

I've been holding back tears

while you're saying "I'm wild"

I'm all alone

You know I, I'm afraid of change

guess that's why, we stayed the same

so, I'll just leave

I'll pack my bags, get on the road

I'll never come back

it's better this way, mother, oh you know

'cause you remind me every day

I'm not enough, so I'll just leave

feels like I'm always wrong

just trying to get by while I'm dying inside

I've done a lot of things wrong

loving you being one

but I have to move on

you know I, I'm afraid of change

guess that's why we stayed the same

so I'll just leave

I'll pack my bags, get on the road

I'm never going back

it's better this way, mother, oh you know

'cause you remind me every day

I'm not enough, so I'll just leave

if you want me to stay

then just tell me I'm enough and mom I'll stay

'cause you remind me everyday

I'm not enough so I'll just leave.